It's difficult to promote emotional intimacy when you haven't taken the time to identify your emotional needs. Your emotional needs could be to be touched or held, you may need forgiveness or acceptance, it may be about feeling included, engaged, considered, seen, heard, nurtured, held or understood. Regardless of your emotional needs, you need to know what they are if you expect the need to be filled by the people in your life.
Beyond knowing those needs, you need to be prepared to discuss them, too. How will your partners in life know what you expect if you don't state your expectations? This is particularly important, as is the above point, for men. When straight men don't deal with this appropriately they have a tendency to turn their romantic relationships into maternal ones. No woman wants to mother their partner. It can be challenging for men to determine their emotional needs because society has always told men to be strong and stifle their emotions. When you make a request of someone, ensure that it is legitimate, that it is clear, and that it is firm. If you are not met with a firm yes or no you may need to negotiate, so be honest when you're dealing with this type of situation. If it's someone else that is making the request of you, you need to deal with how to say no when you mean no. Work on your ability to hold each other accountable when agreements are broken. While it's important for others to take responsibility for letting you down, you need to be prepared to do the same when the breakdown is on your end. When someone in a relationship is angry or hurt it's important to understand what need is being unmet and has led to this breakdown. Often, these issues go unresolved, which means there is an unidentified problem that could eventually cause resentment. Identify the problem and deal with it headon. Don't be scared to have open and honest conversations, especially when it comes to fear. Fear plays a large role in relationships – people are afraid of losing themselves to the wants of someone else, and they are scared of losing that person to something or someone else. Nothing is more effective in life than open and honest conversation – especially when it comes to romantic relationships. …show more content…
Communication is just as effective as any aphrodisiac. So, get into the habit of turning the television off, putting your phones away, and shutting out all other distractions and sit down and just talk to each other. Make plenty of eye contact as you actively listen to what the other person has to say.
It's also important to feel safe in that conversation, whether it's a romantic relationship or not. So, ensuring that your loved ones know that you have their back, no matter what... is a big part of making them feel safe. Feeling safe with someone is an important part of growing emotional intimacy. Here are a few further tips for you if you are trying to establish emotional intimacy in a romantic relationship, though it may be helpful information to those looking to foster a platonic relationship, too. Trust – without trust, where are you in your relationship? It runs, or it sound,